Video: Shoe thrown at Hillary Clinton during speech in Las Vegas

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ducks as an object is thrown on stage during an address to members of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries during their annual convention at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Thursday, April 10, 2014, in Las Vegas. Clinton, a possible presidential contender in 2016, ducked but did not appear to be hit by the object, and then joked about the incident. Security ushered out a woman who said she threw a shoe but didn't identify herself to reporters or explain the action. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Sun, Steve Marcus) LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL OUT

LAS VEGAS — A woman was taken into custody after throwing what she described as a shoe at Hillary Clinton during a Las Vegas speech.

The incident happened moments after Clinton took the stage Thursday at an Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries meeting at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino.

Clinton ducked but did not appear to be hit by the object, and then joked about it.

“Is that somebody throwing something at me? Is that part of Cirque de Soleil?” Clinton quipped.

She added: “My goodness, I didn’t know that solid waste management was so controversial. Thank goodness she didn’t play softball like I did.”

Ilene Rosen, a witness and the wife of a conventioneer, was seated in the second row when she saw “something orange thrown from the side aisle with papers that fluttered in the air.”

Rosen said the woman walked down the aisle and got about six rows from the front of the seating area when she threw the object. The woman then turned around, put her hands in the air and walked toward the back of the room before ushers caught up with her, Rosen said.

Security officers ushered out the woman, who said she threw a shoe but didn’t identify herself to reporters or explain the action. Mark Carpenter, spokesman for the recycling institute, said she wasn’t part of the convention.

Authorities said she would be arrested.

Rosen said the object that went past Clinton lodged in a decoration at the back of the stage for a moment, but a security officer quickly grabbed it and took it off stage.

After her speech, Clinton answered questions posed by Jerry Simms, the outgoing chairman of the organization. Simms first offered what he called a “deepest apology for that crude interruption.”

Clinton answered questions broadly, saying she felt politics today leads people to “do what they think will be rewarded.”

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An attendee later handed a reporter a piece of paper that was apparently thrown by the woman. It appeared to be a copy of a Department of Defense document labeled confidential and dated August 1967; it referred to an operation “Cynthia” in Bolivia.

The former U.S. secretary of state and Democratic senator from New York has been traveling the country giving paid speeches to industry organizations and appearing before key Democratic Party constituents.